Two arrested in Elizabeth shooting that injured three

Google MapsElizabeth Police have two suspects in custody after a shooting near the Oakwood Plaza apartments left three people suffering from non-life threatening injuries.

ELIZABETH &mdash Two Elizabeth men were arrested yesterday and face assault charges in a late afternoon shooting that left three people injured near the Oakwood Plaza apartments, police said.

Luis Garcia, 26, and Leonard Paul,18, were charged with assault and weapons offenses when police arrested them following what may have been a drive-by shooting around 6 p.m. yesterday, according to Police Lt. Greg Lewis.

The victims — identiifed only as a 20-year-old man, an 18-year-old man and an 18-year-old girl — were standing near the apartment complex when a silver Lincoln Continental with tinted windows drove by, Lewis said. Someone in the car fired several rounds, striking the victims in the legs and chests, according to Lewis.

Officers at the scene were able to provide a description of the vehicle, and a nearby police cruiser spotted the car and chased it to Westminister Place and Pingry Place, where Garcia and Paul fled on foot into the back of a nearby house, according to Lewis.

Elizabeth Police immediately arrested the men, and recovered two handguns from the Pingry Place residence.

The 20-year-old victim was taken to University Hospital in Newark with a gunshot wound to the abdomen, said Lewis, and the two 18-year-old victims were taken to Trinitas Hospital in Elizabeth. All are expected to survive.

Dorothy Linehous, an Elizabeth resident who lives near the apartments, said her granddaughter was with the victims when the gunfire erupted.

"They got unhappy and just started shooting," said Linehous.

Alicia Hammond, a resident of the Oakwood Plaza complex, said yesterday’s incident came as no surprise.

"There’s been shooting happening here for the last couple of months now," she said. "There’s just a lot of shooting here."